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Flying to the end of the season

Prologue
To Hopkins for the final non State Tourney game of my 2010-2011 season. Its Chaska vs Eden Prairie in the 2AAAA final. Its a neutral floor rubber match as these teams split during the regular season with each winning at home. A surprisingly big line when I make my early entrance and then much to my horror I realize its a 7:30 start, not a 7:00 start. That means 2 things, 1 is that we'll have an SRO crowd (which we did) and that I won't make the end of this game. BOLSHEVIK! Kicking myself for that mistake. Taco in a Bag at Hopkins is always good but the sour cream seemed lumpy, just didn't mix well tonight, disappointing way to eat my way out of the season. Mr Basketball guys amongst those watching. We get both school's pep bands but with the final night of sections and the NCAA tourney getting underway, I'll steal from CBS.

Song of the Day
One Shining Moment - Written by David Barrett performed by Luther Vandross (certainly NOT the disaster done by Jennifer Hudson last year)

Game Time
Ross Travis gets the assignment for Chaska guarding Dylan Stewart. Chaska gets the offense going inside with Jake White scoring their first 5 on the post. Then Travis with a jumper and a post up and White sticks back a miss. 11-8 Chaska at the 12 minute mark. Dylan Stewart already with a pair of drives for layups. He then runs out and challenges for a 3 point play. Robert Vishnevskiy off the EP bench for 3 and Grant Soderberg drives for an easy layup. The 8-0 run over 3:50 forces Chaska to take timeout at the 8:10 mark down 16-11. Chaska comes back with 5 in a row to tie as Travis goes to a nice spin move, White makes the 1st of 2 FTs and Travis puts back the 2nd one. 21-18 EP at 3:20 before Chaska runs off 7 in a row featuring a pretty give and go with White and Travis that resulted in a big 2 handed baseline flush from Travis. 25-23 Chaska at the half. EP comes back to take a 32-28 lead before Ross Travis converts an offensive rebound to tie the game at 32. Then EP takes over. Sander Mohn for 3, Jack Klukas on the post for 2 and then an EP 3. 42-35 Eden Prairie with about 9 minutes left when I have to head for the exits. Thanks to Ryan James' updates it looks like EP kept a 10 point lead most of the rest of the way as they win 67-57.

I had Mr Basketball finalist Jake White (one of the last 5 now) for a double double of 11 and 10 in the first half on his way to 22 points. Ross Travis 16 of his 25 in the second half and he had at least 3 blocks in the game that I saw. Only 5 points from the rest of the roster in each half. Chaska's offense never got into any kind of flow as Eden Prairie defensively made early adjustments to get back side help in the post out of a 4 out look. Chaska finishes the season 24-5 and has the entire base rotation that played tonight graduating.

Eden Prairie gets 4 in double figures as Jack Klukas scores all 15 of his points in the second half. Dylan Stewart 7 of his 11 in the first half. Derek Dedeker 12, Sander Mohn 11. Their defense really kept Chaska at bay and the pace was definitely to their liking. Eden Prairie is now 25-4 and the debate for the #2 seed with Osseo tomorrow should be very entertaining. EP's losses are to Johnson, Hopkins, Washburn and Chaska and they have a win over Hopkins plus a ridiculously tough schedule. Osseo is 27-2 with a loss to Hopkins and a league loss to Blaine. Best win might be Plainview-Elgin-Millville though as the rest of the schedule doesn't inspire (beating Buffalo once and Maple Grove twice is nice but not the same)

That leaves CDH and Lakeville South likely fighting for the last seed. Duluth East, Owatonna and Maple Grove are probably locks for the random draw. Duluth East will be a team nobody wants to draw with the lightning quick Taylor Stafford at the point (see performance vs Hopkins) and star wing Johnny Woodard.